Not Applicable.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to disk drives, and more particularly to a disk drive including a filter with a filter element disposed along a disk surface for filtering disk rotation induced airflow.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The typical hard disk drive includes a disk drive base, a head disk assembly (HDA), and a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) attached to the disk drive base. The head disk assembly includes at least one magnetic disk, a spindle motor for rotating the disk, and a head stack assembly (HSA) having an actuator assembly having at least one transducer head, typically several, for reading and writing data from the disk. The printed circuit board assembly includes a servo control system in the form of a disk controller for generating servo control signals. The head stack assembly is controllably positioned in response to the generated servo control signals from the disk controller. In so doing, the attached heads are moved relative to tracks disposed upon the disk.
A topic of concern is the desire to filter particulate matter internal to the disk drive. For a variety of reasons particulate matter or debris may become airborne within the disk drive. It is contemplated that such particulate matter or debris may result in damage or otherwise degrade the performance of the disk drive. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved disk drive for filtering disk rotation induced airflow in comparison to the prior art.
An aspect of the invention can be regarded as a disk drive including a disk drive base. The disk drive further includes at least one rotatable disk including a disk surface extending to an outer disk edge. The disk drive further includes a head stack assembly rotatably attached to the disk drive base in operable communication with the disk. The disk drive further includes a filter coupled to the disk drive base. The filter includes a filter support disposed adjacent to the outer disk edge, and at least one filter element attached to the filter support disposed along the disk surface for filtering disk rotation induced airflow.
According to various embodiments, the filter support may include a support arm extending radially inward along the disk surface from the outer disk edge. The support arm may include a slot sized and configured to receive the filter element. The support arm may include an airflow opening for receiving airflow from the filter element. The filter support may include a base portion disposed adjacent the outer disk edge coupled to the disk drive base, and the support arm may extend from the base portion. The head stack assembly may include a plurality of rotatable disks each including a disk surface extending to an outer disk edge. The filter may include a plurality of filter elements attached to the filter support with each of the filter elements being disposed adjacent a respective one of the disk surfaces of the disks for filtering disk rotation induced airflow. The filter support may include a plurality of support arms extending radially inward respectively along the disk surfaces from the outer disk edges of the disks. The filter element may be formed of an electro-statically charged material, such as an electret material. The filter element may be generally planar. The filter element may be angularly disposed with respect to the disk surface. The filter element may be elongate and extend radially inward along the disk surface.